'Ripped-off author'

‘Last month, if you will excuse the self-advertisement, I published a novella as an Amazon Kindle single. A mere £1.49 to download, but already a site called general-ebooks.com is offering the thing free. Call me a spoilsport, but this ripped-off author would prefer the authorities to send a policeman with a search warrant.

The implications of this squeeze on arts world incomes will take some time to work themselves out, but essentially they will require most writers, musicians, and actors to obtain some form of patronage capable of subsidising their work. A little of this, but not a great deal, will come from the state. An equally meagre amount will hail from private sponsors. But wherever the source of the additional income, it will bring difficulties which, for most of the artists involved, will be the equivalent of pouring your creative spirit down the drain a flagon at a time. The great patron of the modern literary novelist, for instance, is the university creative writing course - a racket, most of the fellow-writers I know who teach on them generally insist, which involves saying things you don't believe in jargon you find abominable, but does at least have the advantage of paying you a salary.'

D J Taylor, columnist and author of The Windsor Faction and 10 other novels, and biographies of Thackerary and Orwell, in the Independent on Sunday